Letters to America: Courageous Voices from the Past

Introduction from the Past

Dear fellow Americans,

Before you ponder the letters that follow, we wish to lay upon you an indisputable truism. Beginning with that most remarkable year of 1776, generation after generation of Americans have struggled and sacrificed to create a most magnificent America. You, today’s Americans, do not have the right to squander this glorious gift from past generations.

Permit us to continue.

Some of us have been observing you for a few years; others for more than two centuries. Most often we watch with utmost fascination and unfettered amazement. And, while we are foremost proud of you, and think proudly of ourselves as one of you, of late we have become heavy with worry.

Today your, our, America stands on two legs, a leg of self-reliance and a leg of compassion for those in need. Over the decades America has shifted its weight, first favoring one leg, then the other. Today’s America leans heavily on the leg of compassion … mending hurts. While compassion, the noble intent of bending to help the fallen, is a mark of a country’s greatness, buried within America’s boundless compassion are the seeds to sow a future generation that will expectantly look to government to fulfill their needs. In doing such—in expecting the government to caress their very existence—future generations will forfeit the greatest birthright of Americans; the unbridled right to succeed by exercising their passions, their skills, their hopes … to make their mark. And, know well that the path to success for most human endeavors is sacrifice. A sacrifice—training, studying, risking, working, saving—that renders achievement, once attained, one of the greatest of human experiences.

For those first generations of Americans most families ate only what they killed or grew. An empty belly was an uncompromising motivator for clearing fields and planting crops, pausing only to track deer or build a fish dam. Hunger was not an abstract notion for those citizens of early America; it was a lifelong partner. The absolute need to toil for next week’s bread, next season’s crop, next year’s slaughtering, created not so much an American work ethic as a survival ethic.

Do some of you kind citizens still have fire? Yes, certainly, but not the burning-hot fire of those travelers on the Mayflower, or of those pioneers walking in the dust next to their covered wagons so as not to tire the oxen. Today’s America shelters its citizens from the rigors and cruelties that its early generations suffered. No longer does one fear starvation, typhoid fever, a whipping by the master, or twelve-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week, mind-numbing, backbreaking work in a textile mill or a blazing-hot foundry. Sharp-fanged fears of yesteryear have been displaced by a basket of less dire concerns: shrinking retirement funds, stagnant wages, the threat of higher taxes and bloated bureaucracies, coupled with the questionable ability of elected officials to govern, to lead, to speak in realities, and to make the hard choices.

We have concluded that the most compelling wake up call to Americans is not a letter drafted to you from one well-known and revered individual from a long-past generation; likely you wouldn’t know how to tally eleven score and nineteen years ago our forefathers. Rather, we have compiled a dozen or so letters from the nondescript among us. None of these individuals accomplished anything of which history made note. Their lives were like thousands of others, and as the country grew, millions of others of their same generation. While their lives were ordinary, we hope that as you read these letters you come to realize that what may have been ordinary in the life of a long-dead American may appear most extraordinary as viewed from today. Our hope is that by reading these letters to you from the past you come to better acknowledge and appreciate the legacy that is America; and in doing so you will accept, individually and collectively, the need to make those difficult decisions that will endow future generations of Americans with no less of a great country than was bestowed upon you.

From afar,

Your fellow citizens

Luke

Except for the Native Americans, the immigrant story is the American story. The majority of European immigrants in the first two centuries of migration to what became the United States settled the land stretching from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River. Next, from the 1830s onward, wagon trains of settlers pushed west from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. These Americans, these pioneers, abandoned their farms and shops in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and other states for a hope. The same hope that pushed their great-grandparents to abandon their lives in England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Italy to risk perilous sea voyages to the New World … the promise of a better life.

This second wave of immigrants colonized the lands between the Mississippi and the Pacific, except for the scattered Californian seaports settled by the Spanish two hundred years earlier. During the long journey west from the Mississippi the wagon trains traveled for months along the Oregon Trail and its offshoots—the California Trail, the Bozeman Trail, and the Mormon Trail—to reach their destinations.

The journey west was spectacularly challenging and often fatal. But the promise of the new territories and new rewards swayed many to the challenge; such is Luke’s story.

MA DIDN’T WANT TO GO. DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE HER FRIENDS. Didn’t want to leave her father. Didn’t want to leave her church. And no way she wanted to leave her vegetable garden.

Pa said we were going. So’s we went. West we went. Sold our Iowa farm. Sold the plow horse. Sold the cows and chickens. Gave most all the furniture away. Ma kept her hope chest. Pa didn’t put no money in the bank. Pa used some to buy four oxen and a wagon. What was left got hid in the bottom of Ma’s hope chest. Money hid to buy land in California.

There was four of us. There was me and an older sister and Ma and Pa. My sister, Mary, was a girl. I mean a real girl. She liked dresses and cookin’ and washin’. A lot of girls I knew weren’t like real girls. They was like soft boys. Worked and rode like a boy, they did. But not my sister. That’s why I think she was right with going west. Where our farm was there wasn’t many boys that could turn into men so’s my sister could marry ’em. Think she thought maybe there’d be more where we was going.

Headed to Missouri River first. Took us two weeks. Weren’t hard weeks. Only two streams that slowed us down. Weren’t deep or wide. ’Course one of our pea-brained oxen broke a leg. Got it stuck in some rocks along the second stream. Pa shot him dead, and the army bought the carcass for three dollars. Said the oxen meat could feed Indians. Pa bought another oxen. Mad that it cost twice what the others cost. Learned real fast further west the more the cost.

Next I thought maybe we’d have to shoot Mary. She was lookin’ pretty much like a woman by the time Pa sold the farm. At the farm we had the outhouse. Maybe only fifty steps from the back door. On the trail to Missouri there weren’t no outhouses. There were plenty of clumps of trees at first. So’s everybody was alone when they were squatting. But then the open fields. Mary stopped going off. Always with the wagon. After a few days she didn’t look right. Didn’t act right. Stopped eating. Ma knew what was wrong. We had two bottles of medicine. Had them as long as I could remember. One was big for big cures. One was small for small cures. They fixed just about anything but a broken arm or a gouged-out eye. Ma gave Mary two spoonfuls from the little bottle. From sunup till sundown Pa had to keep stoppin’ the wagon while Mary went runnin’ off to the horizon. Pa got so mad he told Ma never again give anyone the little bottle cure.

When we reached the Missouri River wagon trains were being formed up. Some headed to Oregon. Some to California. Gold or cheap farmland is what the people going to California wanted. Maybe twenty wagons already gathered. Gathered in a California wagon train. Pa talked to the men. Most from Iowa and Illinois. Told we needed fifty wagons before we headed West. Pa said it was ’cause the leader of the train was greedy. Said he was collecting twenty-five dollars a wagon to take them West. Pa said couldn’t imagine. Couldn’t imagine someone getting over a thousand dollars for four months’ work.

Camped outside of Council Bluffs waiting for our wagon train to gather. It took more than two weeks before fifty families joined up. Most leather hands. A few cotton hands. Most every wagon had a ma and pa and a basket of children. Took a tally of the boys in the train. Two close to my age. Arch and Matthew. Both fine fellas. Matthew’s pa kept him close to their wagon, so’s he couldn’t explore with Arch and me. Mary tallied the older boys. More than half a dozen her age or older. Happy she was.

Train had its leader. He was a Captain. He wasn’t a real Captain. But since he was in charge he was called Captain. His name was Wrighter. But we didn’t call him Wrighter. We called him Captain. Made me feel good though. Made me feel good his name was Wrighter and not Wronger.

Once everyone joined up the men had a meeting. Pa wouldn’t let me sit in. But I did. Sorta did. Got my whittling knife out and set down leaning against a tree on the downwind side of the meeting. Not too far away to hear. I sat a-whittling on a stick and listening with my ears. Captain started with the most important. Said for sure only he set the rules. And that was the first rule. If someone didn’t want to follow the rules that was fine by him. But they needed to leave straight up and go their own way. Captain said he’d been twice to California and twice back to the United States. He knew what to do and what not to do. Said that some trains took the Sabbath off. Told us only days we’d take off was when there was grass and water for the animals. Said we could take extra Sabbaths off when we got to California if we wanted to get right with the Lord. Captain said Indians wouldn’t attack. Said they would steal. Each night there would be guards posted. Two men a night. He would pick who was standing guard. Told us cholera, starving, freezing, and going mad in the Salt Desert is what could kill us. God would decide the cholera. If we did what he told us we wouldn’t starve, freeze, or go mad.

Captain said there were four parts to our journey. Some big, some small. Some not so hard, and one that could kill you. Said the first part was the longest. Traveling along the Platte River for five hundred miles past Fort Laramie shouldn’t be any worry. Second part was going over the Rockies along the Sweetwater River. Shouldn’t be no trouble less it snowed heavy last winter. Snow melting making the water rush over its banks. Talked slow the Captain did about the Salt Desert. Shortest part of the journey. Worst part. Said he’d seen oxen and men go crazy from burning heat. So hot bacon would fry on a skillet without no fire. Last part was following the Truckee River through the Sierra Mountains. Said he knew everyone heard of settlers being snowed in and starving. Not all starved he said. Some ate the ones that did starve. We wouldn’t be getting snowed in, no way. If we didn’t get to the Sierras before October we would halt till spring.

Some other things about the women. Said no cussing around the wives and daughters. Said that if a fellow needed to squat he had to be behind a tree or far off. Said the men should tell their women to go off to the right side of the train when they had to be alone. Men should walk a ways out to the left.

Then the Captain asked a question. Strange I thought. Asked which men didn’t drink. Which men thought whiskey was the devil’s nectar. Three hands went up. Asked if any of the three was only with a wife and no one else. One hand stayed up. Captain said he’d give him ten dollars of his fee back if he’d carry the whiskey in his wagon. For sure, the fellow said. Then the Captain made a rumble. Told everyone to take any whiskey they had and give it to this fellow. The fellow grinning that he got ten dollars.

That night Pa told Ma about the meeting. Left out some things. Put something in. Didn’t tell Ma or Mary about the freezing and starving. Didn’t say anything about the Salt Desert. Did tell Ma the Captain said men should get a good supper ’cause all the hard work and such. Told her about the whiskey. Said he wished he’d said he didn’t drink the devil’s cider. Wished he’d got the ten dollars.

Before heading across the Missouri River the Captain looked over every wagon. Cut out a dozen sickly oxen. Made some families get rid of belongings. Only thing Captain wanted in the wagons was stores, tools, and clothes. Told families to sell their potbelly stoves and the like for whatever they could get in Council Bluffs. Said no matter how little they got it would be more than when they threw it out in the middle of the Salt Desert. Thrown out ’cause their cracked-tongue oxen couldn’t pull another mile. Got right mad when he found whiskey bottles in two wagons. Found them after they’d all been given over.

Everything took from Iowa was piled on our wagon floor. Couldn’t see the floor for the axes, plow heads, clothes, blankets, dried beef, sacks of grain, and Ma’s hope chest. No place to lay or even sit. Right away we knew our wagon wasn’t no good. Other wagons were better. They had two floors. Bottom one held the family’s stores and tools. Maybe two feet above the first floor a second floor with a bunch of trapdoors on rope hinges. So’s you could always get whatever you was storing below. The good thing was the second floor was clear. A place for a sickly person to ride in the day. A place big enough for a family to lay their bedding at night when the wind was blowing the rain sideways.

When Ma saw a two-floored wagon she asked Pa right quick. Asked why we didn’t have two floors. Pa barked and she didn’t say nothing more. But Pa knew we didn’t have the best wagon. Somewhere he got a piece of board and cut and nailed a cupboard together. Hung it on a side right behind the wagon seat. Ma had a place for her pans and such.

Kanesville is where the Captain led us to cross the Missouri. A couple of crossings there. The Captain took us to the lower ferry at a place called Traders Point. Cost five dollars for a wagon to be pulled across on a flat boat. The cattle and horses went for free. They swam. Pa wanted to try to float our wagon across. Wanted to save five dollars. Captain told him he was a fool to try. Said if he did make it across he wasn’t going any further in the Captain’s train.

It took us two days of waiting before Pa had to hand over five dollars. Close to a hundred wagons from other trains waiting for their turn to cross on a flat boat. Waiting in front of us. Captain had us camped some miles away where the cattle had plenty of grass. Afternoon of the second day me and Arch hiked a fair way down to the riverbank. Wanted to watch the goings-on. A family’s wagon and its oxen would be driven on this flat boat. Maybe three times longer than a wagon it was. Strung across the river was a rope big around as Pa’s arm. All the way across it went. Further than you could recognize a man you knew standing on the other side. When this flat boat got loaded men pulled and poled it across the Missouri. ’Course the river was running mighty fast. So in the middle the rope stretched out toward the downstream side. Arch and me watched maybe four go across and back. Slow they went. Took better part of an hour for a flat to get pulled over and back. There was three of them flat boats. So’s they could pull and pole three wagons an hour. The sun was starting down so Arch and I headed back. Just then a bunch of commotion. People hollering. The last flat to load up had a wagon and eight oxen. Didn’t have just four. About midstream the oxen get spooked and move right to the front of the flat. So heavy they are the front of the flat dips into the water. But that’s not what drowned the family. The wheel lock on the wagon wasn’t set. So’s this wagon goes rolling right into the oxen. All go a-tumbling into the running river. Some heads for a while. Then nothing. Only thing not drowned was the wagon.

Arch and I back to our train as fast as we could run. Panting heavy we tell the Captain what we saw. Bent way over he did, so’s he was looking us in the eyes. Said we shouldn’t be telling this story till after our train was across the Missouri. ’Course I told Pa that night. He said he wouldn’t talk about what happened. In the morning everybody saying how awful it was the family drowning and all.

Took us most of two days to get all the wagons across the Missouri. Got across we did with no hurts or bothers. River wasn’t running as strong as when Arch and I saw the poor family go under. Didn’t stop Ma from holding her Bible the whole time she was on the flat boat.

Camped one night right on the west side of the Missouri River. Then started off to the Platte River. Captain said six or seven hundred miles we’d travel on its banks. Stories was that the cholera was bad on the Southside. Said whole families dying. So’s we crossed to the Northside and headed west.

First few days just getting it right. What to do and who should do it. All of us learned the most important thing. Always do what the Captain said to do. A couple of men didn’t want to. Didn’t want to listen to the Captain. Told them straightaway the Captain did. Told them his way or out of the train. Told them that they should write a letter to their families back home before they split off. Said the letter would be the last they’d ever hear from them. No wagon left. No more talk about leaving. ’Cept Mister Akins. That wasn’t till past the Sierras.

Maybe a quarter of a mile long we were. A quarter of a mile of oxen pullin’ wagons with most of us walkin’ beside. Front of the line wasn’t the same as the back. Front was better. When things were dry less dust in the front. After a spell of no rain everyone in back turned brown from walkin’ and breathin’ in brown dust. If it was raining the trail turned to mud. Each wagon pushed the ruts deeper. Wagon axles started draggin’. Back end of the train had to move off the trail. Had to make a new trail. Had to cut trees and fill in gullies to keep up. Another thing, even if there wasn’t dust or mud, the back wagons were pulling through the droppings of more than two hundred oxen. Back of the train wasn’t no good. That’s why the Captain kept changin’ us up. Moved us around so’s you weren’t always in everyone’s mess.

Learned a lesson two families did. Every night we’d stake the wagons down. Hard work pounding stakes. Back-aching work in dried rock-hard ground. But gotta do it. Winds come up strong. A sideways wind blows a wagon over. Right over with a crash. Maybe breaks a couple of wheels. For sure a big mess. Real calm it was. Didn’t look like no problem so two fellas didn’t drive their stakes. Went to sleep. Wind didn’t sleep. In the morning there they was. No broken wheels but pots and clothes all over. Men pushed them right side up. Captain said never again.

Captain did something smart. Always setting a goal that wasn’t so far off. Not far off like California. That way we’d be showing ourselves the Captain was right. Right in telling us we’d make it to California. After crossing the Missouri told us about the Loup River. Maybe five days off if it didn’t rain. Rolling toward the Loup wasn’t much trouble. If I’d known what was ahead of us I’d a said the first days were easy. But at the time they weren’t easy. Weren’t because we all was used to eating and sleeping under a roof. Just like the Captain said on the fifth day there was the Loup. Flowed down from the north it did. Flowed right to the Platte. Crossed at a shallow ford. After the Loup the Captain always had two men guarding the cattle at night. Indians would steal them, that’s what Captain said would happen.

More times than not a big fire was built at the end of the camp. ’Course if the grass was dry and there was a wind nobody built a fire. But the big fire was where the men met after supper. Pa let me come sometimes. Told me to keep my mouth still. Only thing I could move was my ears.

Most talk around the big fire was what was right and what was wrong. Captain kept the yellin’ down. Always talk of whose oxen were slowin’ us down. Arguments about maybe we should’ve used horses not oxen. Always talk about where we could find water. And always more complainin’ about how’s some wagons never shot a deer or a bird, or caught a fish. Talk about why we shared our food with ’em. But the Captain always said the same thing. We was all going to end up the same place. If we wanted to make California, we needed to make sure everyone got there.

Campfire talk wasn’t all about the train. ’Course that was most of it. Captain saying what to do and not to do. Sometimes the men talked. Talked about California. Men going for the gold talked different. Talked about what they’d do with the gold. Talked about big houses. Bragged big they’d never work again. Not my Pa. Said California just more farming, what he always did. Sold a hundred acres in Iowa and with the same money he’d buy five hundred acres in California. Pa said he could make more money with five hundred acres, no doubt about it. But he wasn’t going to buy anything but more acres with the money he made. Wanted to have the biggest farm in California, he did. Funny thing. Learned more about Pa when he wasn’t talking to me. Learned more when he talked like I wasn’t nowhere by.

At night the women did most of the work. Washing if we were near a stream, but most nights no water. Cooking and making do with whatever we had or killed. Teaching some, but most learning stopped. After a day on the trail and making camp and cooking and washing no time for learning. Picking up firewood, always picking up firewood. Always needed a fire. Later no wood cause there weren’t no trees. Filled burlap bags with buffalo chips for the fire. Mother said she never thought she’d cook on animal droppings. Big job was patching. Making the worn out clothes do. After five hundred miles my britches had parts of old shirts and a horse blanket sewed right in. But it didn’t bother me none. Bothered my sister, but not me.

Told you we had four oxen pulling. My sister named them. Called one Miss Brite. She was the teacher at Des Moines. She taught all the grades. So’s she taught both my sister and me. Didn’t like Miss Brite a bit did we. Happy we were when Pa was swinging his ox whip on a hell hot day.

Those first days along the Platte we covered a fair hunk of land. Maybe twenty miles a day. So’s I was thinking it would only take maybe two or three months to California. ’Course I hadn’t thought about spending days sitting in mud, not moving a chicken step cause the mud squeezed the wheels tight no matter how hard the whipped oxen pulled. Hadn’t thought about unloading the wagons so’s the straining oxen could pull them up a rocky rise. Hadn’t thought about taking time to make boxes, dig holes, burn names on wooden markers and sing Nearer My God to Thee.

Maybe two weeks after crossing the Missouri we saw our first marker. Stories of cholera weren’t made-up stories. My sister and some other girls put purple wildflowers on the pile of stones that covered the grave. Sticking up from the rocks was a wood headstone with burnt-in writing, Lived by God, Died by Cholera. Looked at the grave for a spell. Then off to fetch firewood. That night a thunderstorm worse than anything I heard before rolled over. ’Course before I wasn’t sleeping under a wagon. Then rain. Rain so hard that a river flowed right under our wagon. Soaked everything. Got up into the wagon we did. Nobody slept. Canvas blowing and rain beating. By morning the rain had slowed a bit. But not enough. Captain came by in a slicker, said we weren’t going to break camp. We were staying put. Two days we sat. Not a wheel turning. Never got dry. Never cooked anything. Only bread, salted beef, and cold coffee.

After two days of rain a blue sky morning. But a wind that would have like’d to blow you over. ’Course not as strong as further into the prairie. But bad enough. Turned all our wet clothes cold, it did. Cold like I started to shiver. Was noon before all the wagons got dug out of the mud and we headed out. Some wagons slipping, but the Captain he didn’t lead us on any sideways slopes. Oxen could pull you up a slope. The wheel lock could hold you back on a downward slope. Get sliding sideways, for sure going to hit something or fall into something.

Didn’t make more than a couple of miles. Camped by a clump of sweetgum on the top of a rise. It was dry. Just about every place else soaked to mud after two days of rain. Down maybe a quarter mile away from camp a stream. A stream flowing into the Platte. Me and Arch and a couple other fellows headed down to fetch buckets of water. Had to keep jumping gullies. Two days of rains had washed deep gullies right down to the stream. Wouldn’t you know, jumped over one and slipped backward. Thinking right away how dumb I’m going to look covered in mud. Before I climb out I see them. A pair of blue socks sticking out of the side of the gully. Socks with feet and legs in ’em. I give an Indian yell and Arch pulls me up in a rush. Don’t know what I’m looking at. Then I see the marker. Rain waters washed away half of some poor soul’s resting place. Another fella gives out a big yell while pointing. Down the gully a baby. Face down in the mud it is. Ran back to the train. Hardly could speak. Captain had me show him what I’d seen. He read the marker. A young girl it was. Captain walked down to where the baby was. Stared for a spell. Told me to jump down and pick it up. Couldn’t do it, no way I could. Captain smiled. Only time I ever seen him smile. Told me it was a doll. He was right. Probably buried with the young girl. Next morning men did the burying. Laid the girl and her doll under a pile of stone on the top of the bluff. Afterward Captain gave each a gulp from one of the safe-kept whiskey bottles.

Maybe a day past Fort Kearny when we met up with the three other wagons. ’Course we didn’t go through Fort Kearny. It was on the Southside of the Platte. Some wanted to, but the Captain said no. Only thing Fort Kearny had that we didn’t was cholera. So there we were on the Northside with these wagons fording from the Southside. Captain rode over and talked to them for a good while. Told the Captain they wanted to join up with a train going to California. Said they had come up from Independence. Spoke to Pa and some of the men, the Captain did. Musta all agreed ’cause that night the three wagons camped with us. Next day broke camp with us. Captain put ’em at the back of the train. Made them learn their place real quick.

Captain had us driving hard along the Platte to reach Ash Hollow. Most days traveled ten to fifteen miles before staking out camp. Couple of times we had to swing North to go around swamplands. Crossed some streams. Slowed us down, but not much. Worst was the mud if it rained. A day of rain was two days of mud. Two days of pushing and shoving stuck wagons.

Ash Hollow wasn’t nothing but a bunch of trees on the South of the Platte. Right after Ash Hollow in rides these two Indians. Didn’t sneak up. Just rode in sitting tall. Looping behind them a dog. A dog like you’d see at any farm back in Iowa. Quick like the Captain rides up to them showin’em we’re not scared or nothing. Sitting on their horses like they was chairs, the Captain and Indians talk for a spell. Indians all the time pointing this way and that a way. Captain rides over to a wagon and back. Off ride the Indians toward where they came from.

After setting camp the Captain tells us about the Indians. Sioux they were. Said they are most honest. Not trying to steal when you weren’t looking. These Indians wanted to trade. Asked for some salt. In trade would show the Captain where the best hunting was. That was their trade. Captain didn’t need no hunting grounds. He did want peaceful Indians. So he gave ’em salt.

Captain told us something else. Made a big speech about where we were headed next. Talked about Courthouse and Jailhouse Rocks and Chimney Rock. I knew he was funning us. Said this stone chimney went straight up to the clouds. Maybe half a mile high. Said it grew out of a pile of sand bigger than anything we’d seen. Couldn’t imagine such a thing. Captain said maybe three days. Took us four. Lost a day ’cause of two broken wheels. It wasn’t the wheels that broke. It was the spokes. One broke spoke you kept going. Had to stop the whole train when two broke. Couldn’t not stop. Couldn’t leave a family behind. But we did leave a family behind. Left three families behind. Left behind cause of the cholera and the lying.

Told you how the Captain put the three wagons from Independence at the back of the train. But strange thing. When the Captain said they could move forward, so’s they weren’t sloping in mud, said they wanted to stay in back. Nobody wanted the tail end of the train. Then one night when the sun’s pretty much down the Captain sees them digging. Sees some of the men from the three wagons digging fast like. Finds out he does. Finds out they are digging a grave fast cause they don’t want the Captain to know someone died of the cholera. At first they said the poor soul got sick fast. The young boy they was burying. But the boy’s sobbing mother told the truth of the story. They’d been traveling with a train on the Southside of the Platte. They weren’t up from Independence. Left their train cause of the sicknesses. People dying of fevers and constipation.

Captain didn’t ask any questions after he found out they were liars. Told them they couldn’t have their wagons in our train. Could follow but not close. A fella asked how far back they should stay. Captain said further than his rifle could shoot.

For two days we could see them. White dots on the horizon. Then only their dust. Then nothing. But in front of us there they were. Courthouse Rock and Jailhouse Rock were like God made two giant buildings out of solid stone. So big you’d think the ground couldn’t hold them. Started to think the Captain wasn’t funning us about Chimney Rock. He wasn’t. Next day Pa halted our wagon on a rise and we stared across the Platte at Chimney Rock. It didn’t touch the clouds. But for sure it was higher than anything I’d seen before. ’Course there was more. Next day we passed Scotts Bluff. Bigger than both Courthouse and Jailhouse together. One fella said the top reminded him of the Capitol in Washington. Think he just wanted us to think he’d been to Washington.

Something funny. Traveling west along the Platte I got smaller. We all got smaller. ’Course that’s not right. But if the world around you gets bigger you are sorta smaller. Back home if I stood on the hill behind the cow barn I could just see the red roof of Drury’s farmhouse. Hills and trees got in the way of seeing far. Going west when morning camp was broke you’d spy some big stone outcropping on the horizon, thinking maybe you’d get there by noon. When you made camp after a hard day it didn’t look no closer. The West was bigger than the East. No doubt about the truth of it.

Captain told us three days to Fort Laramie. Took us five days. Another broken wheel and a broken wagon tongue. And a whole night of rain. A bad rain and worse mud. But we got there. Fort Laramie was on the Southside of the Platte. Just east of where the Laramie River joined the Platte. Indians camped on the Northside across from the Fort. Animal hide tents with smoke coming out the top from their cooking fires. Captain said smoke kept the mosquitoes away. All whichaway naked Indian kids a-running and bone-skinny dogs barking. A bunch of Indians were selling or trading all sorts of things. Pa told me he saw a scalp on a pole. Funning me I think. From an almost naked Indian Pa bought a skillet. Ma left hers on a cooking fire a few camps before. Pa right steaming mad that she did. Bought a horse blanket Pa did. Cost less than a blanket for a bed. Pa told me to pretend I was a horse when I wrapped it around me in the freezing Rockies. A flat boat took folks across the Platte to the Fort. Cost twenty-five cents a head over and back. Pa didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to spend money. But Ma could see houses along one side of the Fort. After five hundred miles of sleeping on the ground Ma wanted to be around folks that lived like we used to. So’s we went. A whole dollar of us went.

Just like the Indians, white people at the Fort selling everything you needed and wanted. Mary and I got Pa to buy two cans of sweet lemon water. One for each of us. And I got a handful of hard candy just for me. Mary got herself a bracelet made of three colored strings weaved together in patterns I’d never seen. Pa bought himself a good sized bag of tobacco. So’s he told Ma to pick something. A yellow bonnet with flowers she bought. Hers had blown clean away the first week on the Platte. She’d been wearing one of Pa’s old hats.

The whole time going back across the Platte on the flat Pa was complaining. Complaining about the money he’d spent. But I don’t think he was really that way. Think he was happy to have got us something. Happy we were safe so far. Happy we was closer to California.

After Fort Laramie we kept on the Northside of the Platte heading west. Some men put up a fuss that the Southside of the Platte was an easier trail. Captain said no. Owners of flat boats wanting five dollars for taking wagons to the Southside told lies about an easy trail. Said that in 1850 he’d been with a Mississippi Company when they used the North route. He knew it was passable. Right he was.

Half a day out of the Laramie the Captain swung the train North. Away from the Platte we swung. Captain said we had to go around a canyon the Platte ran through. Not enough room on the edge of the river for wagons. So North we went. Couldn’t hardly tell, but when you looked back you knew. The river kept getting further back and lower on the horizon. After a long spell of flat prairie, the hills were a change. ’Course not a good change if you were an oxen. An oxen pulling a wagon up a slope. Ma and Mary never could have believed so many wildflowers. But the oxen weren’t smelling no sweet flowers.

Didn’t know what the Captain did till after Fort Laramie. Cut a fella out of the wagon train. Gave him his twenty-five dollars back. Told him he and his family weren’t going. Weren’t going to California in the Captain’s train. Ma told me the reason of it. This fella was always spitting mad. Mostly mad at his wife about this or that. One morning she didn’t come out. Stayed in the wagon. Her son cooking supper that day. Then the Captain saw the truth of it. She was bruised and pounded. So the Captain waited till Fort Laramie. Told them not on his train.

After a spell hardly a tree some places. So’s no wood for the cooking fires. ’Course you knew what we did. Picked up buffalo chips. Chips just a woman’s way of saying it. Picked up droppings from oxen and cows and all sorts. Only picked up dried hard ones from trains before. Just people droppings we didn’t pick up. First only used two fingers. After a spell didn’t bother me any. Held a bunch in my arms.

So’s anyway Arch and I fun Matthew one day. He’s like us. Has to gather chips for his ma. Puts them in a burlap bag he does. Hung on the side of their wagon the bag is. So’s his ma has chips for the morning and evening fires. After a day on the trail Arch and Matthew and me goes out. Goes out like most times to collect chips. But I come back before them. Quick like I get a big handful. A handful of warm ox dropping. Pack it tight I do. Wait for Arch and Matthew. Sure enough Matthew hangs the bag of chips on the side of his wagon. Then he’s off. Walk by I do. Walk by just looking around. Make sure no one’s a watching. Drop the warm ball in the bag and keep going. Arch and I sit and wait. For sure it was a loud one. Never heard his ma yell so loud. Never heard nobody’s ma yell so loud.

Emigrant Hill is where we buried her. She was from the Ingrams wagon. Maybe five years old she was. Had the fever for days. Even before we got to Fort Laramie she had fever chills. Got ’em from the rain and cold winds. Her ma all the time nursing her tender. But then the little girl got the shakes bad. Shakes stopped. She died. Right on top of the hill men dug her grave. Mister Ingrams pulled some boards from the second floor of their wagon. Used them for her box. Pa took a hunk of board and made a marker. Heated up a piece of iron and burnt in her name. We all stood in a big circle. Silent we stood. Captain read from the Bible. A wind blowing hard. Dark sky like it wanted to rain. Her ma and brother crying. Her father just looking at his boots. Didn’t move at all.

It was the Ingrams’s girl dying that twisted my life. Turned it all whichaway. Let me tell you why.

Four of the wagons in our train had a passenger. Someone not a part of a family. These people paid to ride in the wagon. Paid a fair amount to the family in the wagon. Ingrams had a passenger. Timothy Akins was his name. Spoke strange. Acted strange. And dressed strange to my way of dressing.

After her daughter passed Missus Ingrams said no more. Didn’t want to go to California. She didn’t want her son dying on the journey. Her husband put up a fuss. But she just kept saying no. Wanted to go back to Fort Laramie. Wanted to live near where her daughter was buried. So Ingrams pulled away from the train. Headed back. But not their passenger. Not Mister Akins. He was going to California. That’s how I got to know him. ’Cause he rode with us. Almost didn’t. Pa said no when Mister Ingrams asked would he take Akins. Pa said we already had too much in our wagon. Mister Ingrams was off and back in a spell. Talked to Pa he did. Pa talked to Ma and then Pa told Mary and me. Akins was traveling with us. Ingrams and Pa was trading wagons. Ingrams didn’t need two floors. Back in Fort Laramie they’d be done traveling. So Ma got her two floors. Just like a root cellar it was. She had a place in the wagon for all our belongings. No reason to be sleeping on axes and sacks of grain. ’Course Pa got something. Got twenty-five dollars from Ingrams. That was the fare Akins paid Ingrams. Pa was right happy. Happy till the trunk and the truth of the fare.

I’m going to tell you about the trunk and the fare. But first let me tell you about Timothy Akins. An old fellow he was. Maybe over fifty. More round than straight up and down. Skin was whiter than a lady’s skin. Hands didn’t have no scars, didn’t look like they’d done much. Wore pants that matched his jacket. Same cloth they were. Wore shirts that were white. ’Course they turned a yellow by the Salt Desert. Wore glasses. He read a lot. That’s why he wore glasses so much. Never did wear boots. Wore shoes. They looked like his hands. Didn’t look like they’d done much working. And Akins spoke strange. Each word had a space between. Like each was special and needed room to stretch.

About the trunk. When we traded wagons everything got moved. Our belongings to their wagon. Ingrams belongings hauled to ours. Pa was loading our new wagon and there it was. Biggest trunk you ever saw. Twice as big as Ma’s hope chest. Pa went to move it. Went to slide it to the back of the wagon so’s Ingrams could take it with them. It didn’t move. Like it was nailed down it sat. Pa down and off. Straight to Ingrams he went. Some loud words and he was back. Mister Akins’s trunk it was. Heavy like to be filled with rocks. But not rocks, filled solid it was with books that Akins was taking to California.

Now, a digression and pause if I may. Pause as a gray-black caterpillar pauses for its metamorphosis into a resplendent butterfly. No less did Timothy Akins change my life than God’s wonder changes the caterpillar’s. As I learned from Mister Akins, there are those seismic-like moments that forever change nature and, perhaps, even mankind itself. Often these changes are recorded, labeled, and studied. Christ’s birth being such an event as reflected in the Anno Domini dating system … B.C…. Before Christ. My life’s calendar calibrated against B.A., Before Akins and A.A., After Akins. The remainder of my letter to you is written in the style of an Akins disciple. In no way does my stylistic metamorphosis reflect any malice toward, or disappointment in, my family and life before I met Mister Akins. Both were without blemish. Rather, let my writing acknowledge the teachings of my mentor, and my profound respect for him.

With the burying of the young Ingrams girl and the exchanging of wagons, the train resumed its weave among the hills north of the Platte. Mister Akins sat next to Mother on the wagon seat. My sister more often walked. Mary claimed that she enjoyed the exercise. Perhaps, but physical exercise was not her exercise. Her smiling stroll along the edges of our train allowed her to gauge the young men that might, through looks and demeanor, qualify as a potential biological, economic, and emotional partner for life. Having identified a small subset of eligible male candidates, she proceeded to better know them. This done with the shrewd application of seeming disinterest, followed by random conversation and casual-appearing questions crafted to lay bare the unsuspecting males’ core beliefs, aspirations, and frailties. Mother would only ask, Mary, does he have eyes as blue as your father’s?

Mister Akins had been our passenger, genteel mother referred to him as our guest, for more than a week before Father learned the awful truth. A truth born from a casual comment at one of the nightly campfire gatherings. Father, feeling financially superior to the others squatting near the flaming centerpiece, boasted how he would spend the twenty-five dollar fare collected from Ingrams for transporting Mister Akins. Father confident that twenty-five dollar fare far exceeded any costs for Akins’s transport. Then a dagger to Father’s heart as a fellow traveler laughingly reported that all the other passengers had paid fifty dollars. Right back to our wagon Father sprang yelling at Mister Akins; wanting to know how much he paid Ingrams. Looking up from his book he answered fifty dollars. A response served with no more emotion than if Father had asked him what time his pocket watch showed. Only pausing to take a breath so he had sufficient air to shout his words, Father demanded Mister Akins pay him the other twenty-five dollars. Mister Akins looked up again, held his silence for a moment and then softly explained that he had paid Mister Ingrams fifty dollars, and he didn’t believe seventy-five dollars was a reasonable fare. Spitting mad, Father made straight off to the Captain, who stoked his already coal-hot consternation. The Captain informed him that Ingrams had used half of Akins’s fare to pay his charge for leading their wagon to California. Hence, the Captain concluded, Ingrams had paid Father the full balance of Akins’s fare. Not surrendering his right to a full fare, Father pleaded that since the Ingrams weren’t going to California the Captain should give him their twenty-five dollar fee. As a judge ruling from the bench, the Captain told Father that only Mister Ingrams could ask for his money back. Father did not sleep this night. But the resolution of his frustration was the single occurrence that most shaped my life.

Father never ceased berating Mister Akins; in Father’s universe of fairness his need, yes, unquestionable right, to collect fifty dollars for Akins’s fare stood taller than Akins’s desire to pay no more than fifty dollars for transport. In time a truce. A truce forged by the flame of necessity. A necessity for Mister Akins to tender Father a fig leaf of satisfaction while not depleting his meager personal funds. To my horror, Mister Akins offered an additional consideration; he would provide me an introduction to a classical education. To my greater horror, Father accepted. While Akins verbalized for Father and me the topics he would touch upon, our heads nodded acceptance. Nodded with the same comprehension of the scholarly world as possessed by cattle nodding their heads at a watering trough.

After the evening meal of the day of the truce, Mister Akins attempted to survey my brain to better understand in which classical disciplines I excelled and which would require his tutelage. It was a brief and unpleasant survey. Unpleasant for Akins; he mumbled that he should have paid my Father the contested fare rather than attempt to breastfeed my intellect. When asked if I spoke Latin, I responded by stating no one in my family knew any Indian words … no matter what tribe. Further inquiries about the Iliad, Hamlet, prime numbers, Pythagoras’ Theorem, the Battle of Waterloo, Copernicus, and Aristotle were met with like nonsensical responses; thus confirming Miss Brite’s inability to concurrently teach diverse subjects to ten grades of farmyard kids cloistered in a one-room clapboard Iowa schoolhouse.

We had just broken camp, the train crawling westward, when my formal education began. Seated on his trunk of books, and